The University of California at Berkeley has suspended courses in Israel and other countries subject to a U.S. State Department travel warning, according to a MediaNews report in the San Jose Mercury News. The policy stems from concerns over missile attacks that threatened archaeology students in northern Israel this past summer during the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah, a militant Shiite Muslim group based in Lebanon.

The new policy threatens to end Berkeley’s participation in a consortium that is studying Tel Dor, the site of an abandoned 3,000-year-old coastal city just south of Haifa. As many as 70 Berkeley students at a time have joined researchers from other universities at Tel Dor during the annual summertime digs, but trip organizers were told last week that the university would no longer sponsor the expeditions. The action comes several years after the University of California system suspended other study-abroad programs in Israel.